


Elementals

by Siria



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-07
Updated: 2007-07-07
Packaged: 2017-10-03 19:42:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Working you, slow mile by mile,/ Into your proper haunt/ Somewhere, well out, beyond.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Elementals

**Air**

The Jancthni are one of those Pegasus civilisations which have, in Rodney's opinion, developed just enough technology to be dangerous, but not nearly enough to be interesting. John would beg to differ, Rodney knows, entranced with the microlite planes which are the pride of the burgeoning Jancthni scientific community, their first steps in raising their people to the sky. John circles them, fascinated, on the wide-open airfield, asks questions which Rodney is sure the Wright Brothers solved long ago, spreads his arms out wide in illustration to a group of avid listeners, and for once, just this once, Rodney is the one trailing in John's wake.

Rodney can see nothing to exclaim about in these frail craft, these things that wouldn't have seemed out of place in one of Da Vinci's notebooks; gossamer thin wings and structures that Rodney would swear could never support a person, not up so high. The little planes are painted red and black, the bright colours of the First House of the Jancthni, and Rodney can't picture them against the pale blue sky, refuses to countenance the idea of John taking one of them up for a test flight, let alone the two of them.

And yet somehow, somehow, he finds himself sitting next to John as the little craft climbs higher, buffeted by a crosswind until they are high enough to be free, all of the land spread out below them in a green and ochre flare of colour that stretches as far as the eye can see or wings can take them. The air up here is so cold, so clear, that Rodney's lungs burn with it, his fingers are stiff and cold inside the mittens that he insisted on wearing, and he never imagined that it would be like this, not ever.

When John looks over at him, insists he takes control for just a little bit, Rodney sees a look on his face that's bright and uncomplicated joy written in the curve of his mouth, the lines around his eyes. Rodney can't recall seeing that look on John's face often, before; it's as open and clear as the horizon around them, but so far from cold that Rodney's breath hitches. When they land, feet on solid ground once more, that look doesn't leave John's face; and when they land, Rodney feels light-weight still, buoyant, tethered to the sky by John's lips on his, chapped and warm, John's hands cupping his face, John, John, and the sky above them boundless, blue.

**Water**

Before Atlantis, Rodney never dreamed of water, not like this. His first night here, he dreams of drowning, the shields failing and all the weight of an alien ocean crashing in, drowning them all while he stands and watches; he wakes with a face that's wet, and the taste of salt on the back of his throat.

The dreams never fade, and he fears death by drowning a thousand thousand times when he closes his eyes. One night, he lies awake after they've buried another, older Elizabeth, and thinks of other universes, other lives; wonders if he's dreaming the dreams of another Rodney McKay, the one whose corpse floats, still and bloated and tangled in seaweed in a drowned city. He wonders what it felt like for that other him, trapped with the sound of water roaring in his ears.

Heightmeyer asks him once, not long after, how he's sleeping, what he's dreaming. Rodney says fine, fine, and changes the subject quickly; he doesn't think she noticed.

The dreams don't fade, but strangely, they lessen in frequency not long after John rescues him from the sunken puddlejumper. Griffin and the others, they're still in his dreams, still dragging him down with strong bones bleached white and strange as coral; but here is John now, too, pulling him up. Here is John, back in his bed after too many nights apart, bringing him back to life and wakefulness with the strength of his arms and legs, the warmth of his lips, kissing salt water from his cheeks when he gasps awake; here is John, bearing him up, reminding him of the sky above the waters, and with John here, it feels like sleeping, not drowning.

**Fire**

A desert planet, this time, and hot enough that Rodney can't think, can't breathe, air rasping hot and sandpaper-dry in his lungs. Too hot to do anything but look and feel and touch, lazily, to lie there beneath John in their bed and just be, to wait for noon to pass. In the evening, it's cold, colder, cool enough for activity, trade, something like a market town bustle; cool enough for Elizabeth to open negotiations for mineral ores, and for Rodney and John to be Dr McKay and Colonel Sheppard—cold enough then.

For now, though, it's just day and heat and languid movement, Rodney's gasps of "John," John's low moans of "yes." Sunlight comes warm though the small, high windows; Rodney's fingertips follow it, seeking out the places on John's skin that it highlights, gilds—square patches of shoulder-blade, belly, cock, the half-shadowed, half-bright length of a thigh. John's mouth when they kiss is furnace-hot, tongue tangling, flicking against the roof of Rodney's mouth. John's eyes are hooded, sleepy and dark, rimmed with the kohl the Nehi had given them as protection from the sun's glare. Rodney can't see past it, can't tell what John's thinking; knows only that this growing hunger, this thing that's flaring at the base of his spine and the pit of his stomach, that this thing will burn him to ashes if he's not careful; Rodney knows, and he reaches for John anyway, bites at the full curve of John's lower lip and knows that this once, oh, this once, he's going to be reckless with his heart.

**Earth**

Rodney will never make a farmer. He has no knowledge of how things grow, no ability to coax life from clay with the touch of his fingertips, hands that cannot delve cleanly into rich, dark earth. This he leaves to John, to someone who knows intimately how the earth should curve beneath the sky, knows how to watch the clouds for signs of rain and sun and coming wind, though he's been cut off from it forever.

John has green thumbs, green fingers, eyes the colour of the undergrowth of Calafon's forests; it seems like he was made to blend in here, just like he fit in on Atlantis. Rodney watches him, sometimes, when he's talking with the Calafani elders, or when he wanders over to the other side of the village to help Cadman weed her vegetable patch, or when he gets caught in a sudden shower of rain; Rodney watches, because sometimes it seems like John might blend in too well, that if Rodney doesn't keep him sharp, focused in his sight as well as in his mind's eye, that John will just fade away, merge, become as insubstantial as the sky, as solid as the ground beneath their feet.

John sees him watching, Rodney knows, but Rodney doesn't know if he knows _why_, if he knows that Rodney watches him because he's so fucking scared of losing him, too, that sometimes his throat is tight with it, his fists curled against the force of his fear. He doesn't know if John knows, but sometime she thinks John is scared too; sees agitation in the way John pulls Rodney to him, sometimes, when they're working outside in their new-sown fields of taffa root. John's lips are warm and rough against his, shaping words never spoken out loud, and his breath rasps loud in Rodney's ears when he pulls away; Rodney looks down and sees how John's bare toes curl into the dark earth with the same ferocious grip that his hands are keeping on Rodney's shoulders.

"Shhh," Rodney says, and leans in, kissing John again and again, "Shhh, we're not going anywhere, we're not, I'm right here," cups John's head in a careful hand, opens his mouth to John's kisses and lets them both be grounded.


End file.
